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Yesterday I had lunch in the year 2046 and got a sneak peak at an automotive future so bleak it nearly put me off my carrot cake. My hosts at Michelin, who look forward to celebrating the centenery of their radial tire invention in 2046, invited a panel of car designers and futurists to regale the Automotive Press Association with their vision of urban mobility 35 years hence. If it comes to pass, this driving enthusiast may consider a Soylent Green option.

The moderator set an ominous tone with these stats: Nearly 9 billion people will be crowding the planet, and 70 percent of them will choose or be forced to live in cities. Clearly the personal-mobility paradigm of solo commuters piloting 3000-pound 5×16-foot barges capable of traveling 300 miles at 100 mph with full crash protection will need a double-declutch downshift.

How do you increase vehicular throughput on a geographically constrained road network? By shrinking the cars and making them run closer together. How do you make that safe? You automate them. Yes, the future of personal mobility is tiny robotic pods. Robocars are here now, of course. Google recently revealed that it has quietly built seven robotic Priuses that have accumulated 140,000 mostly autonomous miles on public roads in California. (That’s perfectly legal as long as a licensed driver sits at the helm just in case).

When Big Brother takes the wheel, he doesn’t crash, so crumple zones and heavy safety gear are out, and occupants can text and video-conference to their hearts’ content.

Crowded cities will demand electric mobility, but vehicles may not need to carry all their energy with them if the Partnership for Roadway Electrification and Automation gets its way. PREA envisions imbedding inductive charging pads 2-5 inches beneath the pavement of major arterial roads and highways. By delivering 5-30 kilowatts of power wirelessly to vehicles passing over them at speeds of up to 75 mph, this technology could permit long-range electric travel with battery packs sized to maneuver between parking places and the main roads. Estimated societal cost? $1.5 million per mile.

Our panelists-GM’s Chris Borroni-Bird, Ford‘s Joel Piaskowski, Chrysler‘s Joe Dehner, and Larry Erickson from Detroit’s College for Creative Studies-were all enthused by the prospect of designing vehicles with no bulky powertrain to package, no stringent crash standards to adhere to, and less concern for aerodynamic considerations (at urban speeds, drag doesn’t matter as much). They also threw out some interesting ideas about the evolving human-machine-interface, like retina scanners that track where the driver’s eyes are looking so the car can present vital information there, and possibly allow users to choose and select options from menues purely by eye.

Other pearls of future-think cast before us dining swine: While personal mobility will remain important, vehicle ownership will give way to car-sharing schemes like Zipcar in dense cities. And they offered this reassurance: With only 4.7 percent of those 9 billion folks living in North America, spacious private cars will probably prevail in most of this continent. The United States is just too roomy a nation (geographically and physiologically) to completely adopt zeptomobiles. Maybe I’ll get to drive myself to Michelin’s radial tire party after all.